Metagame SS OU Metagame Discussion Thread v7 (Usage Stats in post #3539)

That's true. If anything, I'd suggest just ban future sight. That's the only thing that makes Slowbro an incredible pain in the ass. That isn't a too complex ban at all since the move single handedly puts a lot of pressure when used. Complex bans would probably just cause some random arguments like you said like why ban that and not this but just banning one move is a lot easier. They did it with baton pass since it is incredibly overpowered when speed boost is passed into a slow wall breaker. Without future sight, Slowbro would just be the same old where it walls stuff like ground types only this time, it can be a good scout with teleport
Future Sight should not be banned as a move. It's not broken on it's own. It is actually a healthy good move that allows teams to force progress against fat. What is being discussed is Future Sight combined with Teleport. I'm not even sure if it's broken on Slowbro but leaning towards no. Urshifu is already unwallable if it runs the right moves. Future Sight does make prediction easier if your hitters are choice locked I guess. I've never felt like I needed Future Sight Slowbro on my teams. In fact I only use Future Sight when I use Slowbro because it's a move that Slowbro gets. I don't use Slowbro because of Future Sight but because it blanket checks a lot of Pokemon and has Regenerator to stay alive trough out the game. The argument that it makes Pokemon unwallable falls flat to me. A lot of Pokemon can become unwallable if it runs the right moveset/Item. Here's just some of them.

Urshifu with Poison Jab and Aerial Ace
Victini with Glaciate, Scorching Sands + V-Create and Bolt Strike.
Pheromosa QD with Shock Wave or Drill Run on Physical sets.
Tapu Lele with LO. Lele is so strong, people usually have to play around it and hope it's choiced in order to force it out. LO fixes this and if you want the full power of Specs just run Modest.
Nidoking with Superpower
Garchomp with Dragon/Fire/Ground coverage.
Dracozolt with Electric/Meteor/Fire Blast

So yeah you definitely don't need Future Sight and it is NOT the reason people use Slowbro. It's more of a bonus thing.
 

Perish Song

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Any post defending "complex bans should be a thing again" is simply misinformed and/or can't see the whole thing from a larger perspective, on why we don't do them anymore.

Let's take :Cinderace: retest in IoAThe council can make a list of options or "negotiations" to show the limits that they are willing to go for the bans
  • Option 1 - No ban
  • Option 2 - Complex Ban: HDB + :Cinderace:
  • Option 3 - Complex Ban: U-Turn is not allowed on :Cinderace:
  • Option 4 - Full Ban
Of course this is an example, but it illustrates my point. You can keep a Mon in the tier, who normally would rock through the tier, in a neutered state to be a somewhat healthy presence in the meta.
You have to realize this goes both ways. Just like you implement it to Cinderace, Libero, or literally anything that well maybe restrictive in the OU meta let's say, I can claim that Arceus would be balanced if we ban all moves with above 90 BP, or Darkrai would be balanced if we ban Nasty Plot from it. This situation itself is what's causing the slippery slope, as implementing this on a larger scale means you are no longer playing a defined metagame, you are playing a ban list. Moreover, there are no limits on what you can restrict so doing this with a stabilized control is not actually possible while also allowing the metagame to adapt in itself. The result would be constant chaos and there always will be someone unhappy with a complex ban.

2. It's too Complex for newer playersAgain, this just doesn't make too much sense either, Smogon is already complicated for many newer players, and it does take some time to get used to and Complex Bans don't help out much in this regard, many people that I know who joined Smogon were perplexed at the existence of tiers, clauses like Sleep, Baton and Evasion, as well as the fact that some abilities were just illegal, even though they were shown to be available, as well as different Pokemon forms and the fact that some mons have to be shiny to have a particular move. You could make a valid case that those examples aren't too egregious compared to Complex Bans, but most new people just go to AG and dick around with either an legendary team or the PIMPNITE team that they saw once, I don't think we are being too intimidating by adding some more Bans (with proper discourse and reasoning of course)Furthermore, the number of great guides of newer players has massively increased, BKC's and Finchinator's channels are the ones that come to my mind rn.
Many would argue it is the other way around. Keeping the ban list simple means less confused players, everything is defined as short and sweet. Trying to learn a complex ban list is much more difficult, and AG wouldn't make a good example here as it's a tier without any rules.

Whenever people bring this argument, they bring up Aldaron's Proposal, which was extremely controversial and arguably useless.I'd argue that a lot has changed since Aldaron's, the Council and the Players have become more experienced overall, and I believe that there is a very large possibility that Complex Bans could help, as shown with the examples above.It frankly depends on the Complex Ban, and for that, I'd ask the following questions-
  • Is the mon an unhealthy part of the meta? Or at the very least, does this mon have no genuine benefits for not being banned?
  • Does this mon constrict team building excessively?
  • Is there no one specific part of the mon which is broken?
If the answer to all of those questions is definitely yes, you are better off using a regular ban. If the answers are mixed, a complex ban might be the better option.
Suggesting complex ban tiering with these 3 questions will cause more slippery slopes, nothing more. The first 2 questions are fine as these are questions you can ask yourself when you try to determine if something is worthy of a ban or not, but the third question involves a great risk. The reason is we evaluate Pokemon as a whole. One element that pushes one Pokemon over the edge may not have the same impact on other Pokemon who share this trait, possibly the best example would be Speed Boost Blaziken with other Speed Boost Pokemon in previous generations. Speed Boost was obviously not broken on Pokemon like Scolipede and Yanmega, and what made Blaziken broken was a mixture of its qualities, not just Speed Boost alone. I already explained why slippery slopes are bad and we don't do complex tiering in q1, so not keeping this long.
 
Any post defending "complex bans should be a thing again" is simply misinformed and/or can't see the whole thing from a larger perspective, on why we don't do them anymore.



You have to realize this goes both ways. Just like you implement it to Cinderace, Libero, or literally anything that well maybe restrictive in the OU meta let's say, I can claim that Arceus would be balanced if we ban all moves with above 90 BP, or Darkrai would be balanced if we ban Nasty Plot from it. This situation itself is what's causing the slippery slope, as implementing this on a larger scale means you are no longer playing a defined metagame, you are playing a ban list. Moreover, there are no limits on what you can restrict so doing this with a stabilized control is not actually possible while also allowing the metagame to adapt in itself. The result would be constant chaos and there always will be someone unhappy with a complex ban.



Many would argue it is the other way around. Keeping the ban list simple means less confused players, everything is defined as short and sweet. Trying to learn a complex ban list is much more difficult, and AG wouldn't make a good example here as it's a tier without any rules.



Suggesting complex ban tiering with these 3 questions will cause more slippery slopes, nothing more. The first 2 questions are fine as these are questions you can ask yourself when you try to determine if something is worthy of a ban or not, but the third question involves a great risk. The reason is we evaluate Pokemon as a whole. One element that pushes one Pokemon over the edge may not have the same impact on other Pokemon who share this trait, possibly the best example would be Speed Boost Blaziken with other Speed Boost Pokemon in previous generations. Speed Boost was obviously not broken on Pokemon like Scolipede and Yanmega, and what made Blaziken broken was a mixture of its qualities, not just Speed Boost alone. I already explained why slippery slopes are bad and we don't do complex tiering in q1, so not keeping this long.

Thanks for the in-depth reasoning why complex bans are bad/not worth it

Yeah, I guess I see the slippery slope there, and moreover, I achieved my main goal of the post, seeing other views of it

Gosh, I'm stupid
 
I don't think teleport is the main reason the future sight is seeing so much use this gen compared to previous metas. Teleport is obviously very synergistic, but so is u-turn, and that move combo was niche at best. I think the main reason future sight has picked up in usage so much is because hazards are the worst they've ever been, which forces us to find other ways to chip mons switching in. HDB are obviously the reason for this and I don't think they're ban worthy, it's just how offense is adapting to the entry hazard nerf.
 

Red Raven

I COULD BE BANNED!
I still maintain future sight is the problem. The problem with future sight is that it forces steels, darks and Blissey to come in otherwise the future sight will severely endanger something. I never mentioned Slowbro is the problem and it's a no brainer that many pokemon become incredibly difficult to wall with the right moveset. I also specifically mentioned that no future sight Slowbro would just be old Slowbro except it can be a pivot. The problem I mentioned about luring those three pokemon is that it can easily be taken advantage of by sending a fighting type out, which would force out all those three and the fighting type in question would hit something really hard which would then be finished off by the future sight

N1ght123 If Slowbro specifically with future sight gets banned, then people could just use its twin as the future sight user and have another pokemon be the physical wall, which ou is abundant with since there are a lot of birds to choose from, three of which are very good physical walls if they don't get their boots knocked off

Spyro you mentioned that future sight is a bonus thing. I don't disagree with this as the main reason Slowbro is ever used is because it can check ground types by not instantly dying to a swords danced earthquake from Landorus and Garchomp and threatening them with burns. It just got teleport to make using it easier. Your argument only proves my point that future sight is the problem as it is just a knife that Slowbro can add to its belt it if it wants to, the keyword is 'want' as it can forgo it if it doesn't care about that
 
Any post defending "complex bans should be a thing again" is simply misinformed and/or can't see the whole thing from a larger perspective, on why we don't do them anymore.



You have to realize this goes both ways. Just like you implement it to Cinderace, Libero, or literally anything that well maybe restrictive in the OU meta let's say, I can claim that Arceus would be balanced if we ban all moves with above 90 BP, or Darkrai would be balanced if we ban Nasty Plot from it. This situation itself is what's causing the slippery slope, as implementing this on a larger scale means you are no longer playing a defined metagame, you are playing a ban list. Moreover, there are no limits on what you can restrict so doing this with a stabilized control is not actually possible while also allowing the metagame to adapt in itself. The result would be constant chaos and there always will be someone unhappy with a complex ban.



Many would argue it is the other way around. Keeping the ban list simple means less confused players, everything is defined as short and sweet. Trying to learn a complex ban list is much more difficult, and AG wouldn't make a good example here as it's a tier without any rules.



Suggesting complex ban tiering with these 3 questions will cause more slippery slopes, nothing more. The first 2 questions are fine as these are questions you can ask yourself when you try to determine if something is worthy of a ban or not, but the third question involves a great risk. The reason is we evaluate Pokemon as a whole. One element that pushes one Pokemon over the edge may not have the same impact on other Pokemon who share this trait, possibly the best example would be Speed Boost Blaziken with other Speed Boost Pokemon in previous generations. Speed Boost was obviously not broken on Pokemon like Scolipede and Yanmega, and what made Blaziken broken was a mixture of its qualities, not just Speed Boost alone. I already explained why slippery slopes are bad and we don't do complex tiering in q1, so not keeping this long.
What about a combination of factors that are ban worthy? I'd argue that regenerator + boots + pivoting move is pretty borderline, as its risk reward ratio is rediculous. Many pokemon have access to this, both offensive and defensive. If we couldn't complex ban, what part would be banned? All three components are fine on there own, but they stack together into something potentially broken, so banning one portion of it would affect nearly every single tier, which we probably don't want.

If this is is the wrong place for this, feel free to move or delete the post, just wanted to get my thoughts on this out there
 
Guys, Future Sight is not a broken move, and Future Sight + Teleport is not a broken combination of moves. If anything is broken, it's the slowtwins, full stop. Here's why. There are actually a lot of Future Sight+Teleport users that are available, many of which have been available from the beginning of the generation, and I've used essentially all of them in one tier or another (as examples::mew: :gardevoir: :beheeyem: :exeggutor: :xatu: :claydol:, I've even used :jynx: in PU). I've enjoyed using the combination since the very beginning of the gen. But it's not even close to broken on any other mon, in any other tier, because in order to pull the strategy off, you literally have to eat 2 hits while doing no damage to your opponent. If you don't actually die during that time, you're probably not at a high enough HP to be able to do it repeatedly. This is where the slowtwins' bulk and Regenerator make an absolutely massive difference in making the strategy effective. Sightport is not remotely broken.
 

Red Raven

I COULD BE BANNED!
I disagree with the notion of banning future sight. Smogon has rarely banned moves, only being baton pass and aurora veil in the lower tiers like NU or PU. For a move to be broken, it has to show that it makes MULTIPLE Pokémon overbearing with it. If only 1-2 Pokémon are problematic with future sight, then the Pokémon can go, but if lots of them can prove to be problematic like with baton pass, than the move can go. For both future sight and teleport, the slow twins and more particularly slowbro have shown to be the only problematic abusers of these moves. No other mon with future sight or teleport has shown to be broken at this stage, therefore it’s not the moves and instead the Pokémon. This isn’t me advocating for a slowbro ban, I actually don’t think it’s ban worthy for now in this current state, but it’s important to clear up misconceptions when it comes to banning moves versus Pokémon. If I said something wrong somebody can correct me but I think this is what is usually used by the side that disagrees with you. Also, I find it ironic how people are considering banning up to 4 Pokémon (pheromosa, cinderace, Urshifu, Melmetal) just to preserve slowbro. I’d rather we ban 1 mon than 4 in this case, and it’s very hard to find solid reasoning to disagree for this part.
Assuming this is true, it still does not change the fact that future sight + fighting types like either Urshifu or Blaziken will force the opponent into a hell of a situation. So, we're all gonna have to make a choice. Either future sight gets banned or the slow twins gets banned, or both, as I don't really see any way to solve this problem without any complex ban, which would only cause more issues
 

Ox the Fox

is a Tiering Contributorwon the 8th Official Ladder Tournamentis a Past SCL Championis a Past WCoP Champion
Smogon Charity Bowl IV Winner
Two Storm Zone/bengay inspired sets I've been loving a lot recently are scarf Heatran and scarf Tapu Fini:

1606325056793.png

Tapu Fini @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Misty Surge
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hydro Pump
- Moonblast
- Trick
- Defog / Ice Beam / Draining Kiss

1606325084363.png

Heatran @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Eruption
- Flamethrower
- Earth Power
- Ancient Power / Flash Cannon​

Both of these mons function as great speed control on balance teams, with a lot of the success of the set coming from the surprise factor. Tapu Fini is able to do things like outspeed and OHKO pheromosa turn 1 who try to u-turn out on you, as well as tricking to cripple a mon in a fatter matchup. It can also be really hard to switch into as most things that want to take water fairy coverage, like ferro or amoonguss, don't want to take a trick. Heatran is also a really useful scarfer as it provides its great defensive typing, great coverage, a huge hitting move in eruption, and of course the surprise factor of most people not expecting it. A lot of my gameplans are laid out to weaken heatran's checks and cleaning with one of its coverage move late game, which is relatively easy to do which its raw power and speed.

Here's the team I was using to get into top 10 if anyone is interested. It features both of these scarfers, as well as cool sets like 3 atks modest zappy, metronome urshifu, and encore clef: https://pokepast.es/cbced430a2409275

Here are some replays of how the scarf sets/the team can function:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1231150996
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1231193682-7iavtx1l59kqi85r3jp953y1yfyj0xkpw
 
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Assuming this is true, it still does not change the fact that future sight + fighting types like either Urshifu or Blaziken will force the opponent into a hell of a situation. So, we're all gonna have to make a choice. Either future sight gets banned or the slow twins gets banned, or both, as I don't really see any way to solve this problem without any complex ban, which would only cause more issues
I agree with banning future sight although its pretty easy to work around. i never expected the slow twins to become this prominent in the meta but Future sight has proven me wrong. Future Sight+Teleport+Regenerator is a little too much for our meta which is very offensive at this point
 

Zneon

uh oh
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People seem to think that Future Sight is the problem, or Future Sight + Teleport, which I don't agree with, so I'm going to talk about Future Sight overall and complex bans in general and why I do not like them whatsoever.

So my first point is going to be able Future Sight in general. I do think its a great move, however the reason why it isn't used on anything other than Slowbro and Slowking is because of the lack of consistent users of the time, if anything just no consistent users outside of Slowbro and Slowking. For reference, I will go with Mew for an example. Mew has access to both Future Sight and Teleport however the big difference comes down to 2 things in my eyes. The first thing is that Mew's defensive niche in the metagame is not really there. Pure Psychic is a pretty awful defensive typing and combined with the fact that its going to be "trying" to do the combo of Future Sight + Teleport multiple times, it will really just flop, another is the fact that so much momentum is lost by using that combo on anything else other than the Slowtwins because of their access to Regenerator and great bulk. This allows them to not only perform it once, but multiple times very consistently, the other Future Sight users don't have that luxury.

Okay so now that I have talked about why I think Future Sight isn't broken other than the Slowtwins, let's talk about something more complex, complex bans. I don't like them, at all, and I'll talk about exactly why.

So the closest thing I can refer to when talking about complex bans is Libero on Cinderace. There was an entire PR thread on that subject and Cinderace got banned and not Libero, and the reason is pretty simple, you cannot make exceptions for Pokemon unless the ability / move is blatently broken itself. Unless its the ability or move that is broken itself and has been proven to be Pokemon on more than one Pokemon, making complex bans are both pretty unnecessary and pretty detrimental to be honest. Libero is basically Protean yet that didn't break Kecleon in ORAS or SM, so why would we ban it? On the other hand, Shadow Tag broke literally every Pokemon who had it that wasn't an LC, even Gotharita and Wobbuffet were hard to deal depending on the support given with and it obviously wasn't because of anything other than Shadow Tag, so that being banned is justified; same with Baton Pass, its a blatantly broken move because you can use it on a vast majority of Pokemon and even make an entire team based around dangerous offensive threats and Baton Pass and it would work. As to why it is detrimental, if you complex something that doesn't need to be, like Libero on Cinderace, then what's stopping the council from banning Teleport cause its used on some of our best defensive mons? Or Knock Off because its "too annoying"?

Overall I don't see the merit in complex bans and not just banning the Pokemon outright unless the element is simply broken outside of the Pokemon itself.
 

Red Raven

I COULD BE BANNED!
In that case, I alter my original suggestion. Since the slow twins are the only ones who are problematic with future sight, then only ban it in ou as the premier users of it are causing problems. I don't really think anyone else that can use future sight are used that much in ou or are as annoying to deal with as those two
 

Finchinator

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OU Leader
In that case, I alter my original suggestion. Since the slow twins are the only ones who are problematic with future sight, then only ban it in ou as the premier users of it are causing problems. I don't really think anyone else that can use future sight are used that much in ou or are as annoying to deal with as those two
You cannot ban things "only" in OU. If we ban something in OU, it is also banned in lower tiers.
 

blunder

the bobby fischer of pokemon
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Big Chungus Winner
Meta is fueg... ladder everyday here are some sets that have been hittin



Moltres @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Flame Body
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hurricane
- Flamethrower
- Scorching Sands
- Roost

strong, still bulky enough to take most hits from non cb mosa etc and still has flame body to cheat vs uturn pokemon


Tauros (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Sheer Force
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Body Slam
- Close Combat
- Throat Chop
- Earthquake

strong breaker, stole it from ladder player imacry. pretty strong, can 2hko slowbro w body slam + throat chop and throat chop is buffed by sheer force. Adamant is to 2hko clef, not a big diff between 350 and 319 anyways, ud rather get a kill w tauros



Fate (Magearna) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Soul-Heart
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Trick
- Ice Beam
- Volt Switch
- Focus Blast

Got this from storm zone. strong for sure, trick lets you stop other magearna from set up and no one really expects scarf even if it's obvious. Magearna still very bulky with 0/0 too so found a lot of opportunities to switch this thing into set up sweepers and make aggro plays like switch into garchomp going for sd / scale shot etc since no one predicting scarf


Slowking-Galar @ Assault Vest
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 248 HP / 164 SpA / 96 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Future Sight
- Eerie Spell
- Sludge Bomb
- Flamethrower

super strong and super tank, cant be koed by any type of special move, even tran earth power like 3-4hko. completely walls lele and fini etc. Eerie spell is cool but can run scald/hydro over it to hit tran/lando/ttar etc


Garchomp @ Blunder Policy
Ability: Sand Veil
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- Dragon Rush

+


Sandaconda @ Smooth Rock
Ability: Sand Spit
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpD / 4 Spe
Careful Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Glare
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge

Ass but fun... scale shot either hits 2 times or miss anyways so one of the worst moves chomp can use. at least here if u miss you can be fast. also I had sand veil + sandaconda so If i miss maybe opponent can miss too. thats the hack. Sandaconda is pretty consistent at keeping sand up and w max spdef youre pretty bulky and the speed is deceptively fast. I usually am able to sr and glare x2 if I play it the best i can



Bisharp (M) @ Black Glasses
Ability: Defiant
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Knock Off
- Sucker Punch
- Iron Head

Classic set. Max hp to tank rillaboom glide and stuff like that at lower hp I like max hp myself havent found speed to be that useful not a lot of shit like rotom sitting at that middle speed tier where you need speed for. There is definitely some better tier to hit though, I know 0 speed EVs isnt optimal. probably hit like 186 stat or something. This might seem bad bc of urshifu but nothing switches into knock off, still good offense pick


shoutouts Ox the Fox I also have been using scarf fini a lot and it's my favorite type of fini to use good at tricking and defog. can also recommend specs zoroark grass knot dark pulse flamethrower trick + specs regieleki... fun core got to top 10 w it havent used in a while though but im sure its still good

Other than that, i think pheromosa is broken and melmetal and cinderace are gonna get banned too after mosa goes

Also Finchinator


Two ladder proposals always end poorly. Splintering the playerbase in general is a bad idea and I can elaborate on this more if people want examples/context. I would much prefer just a formal retest and I personally intend to advocate for one once the rest of the metagame settles/we handle actual problems in the metagame. We are not there yet though, hence the plethora of posts advocating for action on things currently in the tier.

Also, good evening FINCHTOUR30
I think this would be really good for both smogon and the OU tier if you could end up making a post elaborating why two ladders would be a bad idea. A lot of people over the years have asked for two ladders / other ways to change OU and I think having a good post to revisit would be good and also would dispel a lot of myths that a lot of people, even myself may have
 
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Red Raven

I COULD BE BANNED!
You cannot ban things "only" in OU. If we ban something in OU, it is also banned in lower tiers.
That doesn't make much sense to me. Since the environment differs in each tier so just because something is broken in one tier does not necessarily mean it's broken in another. Future sight is only broken in ou because the users of it have the bulk to repeatedly use the move and I don't think many of the lower tiers have stuff as bulky as the slow twins

Then again, it might be a better idea to also ban it in the lower tiers since galar slow twins are not in ou and they have regenerator as well. I won't really comment that much on lower tiers since I only play ou but I still stand by my suggestion that unless many want a complex ban, just ban future sight
 
That doesn't make much sense to me. Since the environment differs in each tier so just because something is broken in one tier does not necessarily mean it's broken in another. Future sight is only broken in ou because the users of it have the bulk to repeatedly use the move and I don't think many of the lower tiers have stuff as bulky as the slow twins

Then again, it might be a better idea to also ban it in the lower tiers since galar slow twins are not in ou and they have regenerator as well. I won't really comment that much on lower tiers since I only play ou but I still stand by my suggestion that unless many want a complex ban, just ban future sight
I find this idea of banning future sight kinda hilarious. If it's broken on the Slow-twins (I don't think it is, but whatever) and those 2 get banned, players aren't going to start spamming future sight teleport Gardevoir, Xatu and Exeggutor anytime soon in OU. This is like arguing to ban water spout because it's too overpowered on Kyogre as though everyone in OU will start using Wailord and Jellicent instead.
 
In that case, I alter my original suggestion. Since the slow twins are the only ones who are problematic with future sight, then only ban it in ou as the premier users of it are causing problems. I don't really think anyone else that can use future sight are used that much in ou or are as annoying to deal with as those two
This just tells me that the things that it's the premier abusers who are broken. Banning Slowbro to deal with the things that are broken on future sight would be like banning Pelipper to deal with Dracovish, or banning screens setters like Koko to deal with Kyurem-B. It doesn't make sense to ban the linchpin of a team style because of specific broken abusers rather than the team style itself being broken; and I'm unconvinced that FS-based teams are inherently broken in a world where you can press protect.
 

Finchinator

-OUTL
is a Tournament Directoris a Top Social Media Contributoris a Community Leaderis a Community Contributoris a Smogon Discord Contributoris a Top Tiering Contributoris a Contributor to Smogonis a Top Smogon Media Contributoris a Top Dedicated Tournament Hostis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnusis a Past WCoP Championis the defending OU Circuit Championis a Two-Time Former Old Generation Tournament Circuit Champion
OU Leader
I also think an experimental ladder would be fine and allows for more data gathering than the alternative so can you elaborate more?
Guess this also tackles the concerns of blunder/others, but: If you make a separate ladder, then the initial ladder becomes less popular, thus compromising usage statistics, altering perceptions on the metagame, and increasing the significance of small sample sizes of games on the entire metagame. The separate ladder also never gains enough traction for pretty obvious reasons: we're not gaining many more players, but we're splitting the ladder in half. We would need to nearly double the amount of players to have a second remotely representative ladder. It's all about sample size and unless the second ladder would draw in thousands of new people, then it would simply not make sense and it would cause more harm than good.

I'm not going to respond to ForstamemasNeetaroOoniqua fully because other people already have, discussing transitivity between metagames is much more a tiering philosophy topic, and not an OU metagame discussion thread specific topic, but also that's not up to me. That's up to Smogon as a whole and has very little to do with OU tiering in particular. I'm just one person on council explaining the system that is in place and giving my opinion on Pokemon in the metagame, nothing more or less.
 
This just tells me that the things that it's the premier abusers who are broken. Banning Slowbro to deal with the things that are broken on future sight would be like banning Pelipper to deal with Dracovish, or banning screens setters like Koko to deal with Kyurem-B. It doesn't make sense to ban the linchpin of a team style because of specific broken abusers rather than the team style itself being broken; and I'm unconvinced that FS-based teams are inherently broken in a world where you can press protect.
The main abuser of futureport is urshifu, who bypasses protect. Urshifu seems to be the broken component here, as future sight is just chip. It's worse at chipping switchins than pre boots stealth rock due to how much setup is required, so it turning 3hkos into 2hkos is nothing new. Urshifu S hitting through protect is what makes the strat so powerful/broken, and who I believe should be tested
 
The main abuser of futureport is urshifu, who bypasses protect. Urshifu seems to be the broken component here, as future sight is just chip. It's worse at chipping switchins than pre boots stealth rock due to how much setup is required, so it turning 3hkos into 2hkos is nothing new. Urshifu S hitting through protect is what makes the strat so powerful/broken, and who I believe should be tested
Urshifu is the main and best abuser, but it isn’t the only abuser, fwiw. Blaziken can also get a little nutty with future sight. Same with Cinderace, Melmetal, Magearna, Pheromosa—just generally the super strong breakers. Even with Urshifu gone, the strategy may still end up being problematic, even if it is to a lesser degree.

Future sight definitely ain’t broken though, either ban the slow twins or ban the breakers that abuse it if they prove to be too powerful for it. Banning future sight (or teleport) is a dumb idea.
 
Like others have said, while Urshifu is the main abuser of futureport, it leaving will barely Mitigate the issue. There are too many offensive breakers that benefit from this play style that we would be better off just banning the slowtwins instead to have less bans in the tier. Slowtwins are the problem here, not the breakers. It’s like if a weather has too many abusers, do you want to ban the auto weather or the 5-6 abusers of it. It’s pretty clear we want as many Pokémon to be as playable as possible, and should we proceed with action o this issue the best solution would be to ban the slowtwins. Also I personally think that things like pheromosa and spectrier warrant being looked at before the slowtwins but it all depends on what happens these next few weeks before the playerbase gets an idea of what to take action on first.
 
Like others have said, while Urshifu is the main abuser of futureport, it leaving will barely Mitigate the issue. There are too many offensive breakers that benefit from this play style that we would be better off just banning the slowtwins instead to have less bans in the tier. Slowtwins are the problem here, not the breakers. It’s like if a weather has too many abusers, do you want to ban the auto weather or the 5-6 abusers of it. It’s pretty clear we want as many Pokémon to be as playable as possible, and should we proceed with action o this issue the best solution would be to ban the slowtwins. Also I personally think that things like pheromosa and spectrier warrant being looked at before the slowtwins but it all depends on what happens these next few weeks before the playerbase gets an idea of what to take action on first.
The reason I think urshifu is the problem is because you can't use protect against it, which is why future port + urshifu is so dangerous. You have to either risk your dark type taking a CC or eating a wicked blow + future sight, which turns a lot of would be urshifu checks into liabilities
 
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Guess this also tackles the concerns of blunder/others, but: If you make a separate ladder, then the initial ladder becomes less popular, thus compromising usage statistics, altering perceptions on the metagame, and increasing the significance of small sample sizes of games on the entire metagame. The separate ladder also never gains enough traction for pretty obvious reasons: we're not gaining many more players, but we're splitting the ladder in half. We would need to nearly double the amount of players to have a second remotely representative ladder. It's all about sample size and unless the second ladder would draw in thousands of new people, then it would simply not make sense and it would cause more harm than good.

I'm not going to respond to ForstamemasNeetaroOoniqua fully because other people already have, discussing transitivity between metagames is much more a tiering philosophy topic, and not an OU metagame discussion thread specific topic, but also that's not up to me. That's up to Smogon as a whole and has very little to do with OU tiering in particular. I'm just one person on council explaining the system that is in place and giving my opinion on Pokemon in the metagame, nothing more or less.
First, I think you have done a great job this gen managing the tier and interacting with the community. I just don't buy your argument here though.

most recent stats -

1,187,084 OU games
155,434 UU games (86% less games than OU or about .13 the number of OU games)
36,911 RU games (96% less games than OU or about .03 the number of OU games)


These lower tiers have a tiny fraction of the OU playerbase and games played and yet they function just fine. I don't think cutting the base in half (which is an extremely unlikely outcome tbh) would really be that big of a deal. We couldn't make usable inferences with half a million games a month? I think this should be put in a future survey for community input, there's a real appetite to do this .:psynervous:
 

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